


C A B

by charmquark



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmquark/pseuds/charmquark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not until a couple of days later that Naruto learns what CPR actually <i>is.</i> ( NaruSaku )</p>
            </blockquote>





	C A B

**Author's Note:**

> “CAB” is a mnemonic for CPR procedure; it means Chest compressions, Airway, Breathing. i’m so inventive.
> 
> (Written 02/2014, so of course canon has rendered all of this AU.)

Inexplicably, Naruto wakes up.

Inexplicable because he remembers, he  _felt_  Kurama ripped from him and it felt sort of like having your organs ripped out, or what he imagined that to feel like. It’s never happened before. But he knows what happens to a jinchuuriki when the bijuu is extracted and thus Naruto is more than a little confused when he wakes up.

“ _Naruto!_ ”

He’s even more confused when a blurry pink shape descends upon him and it’s fractionally harder to breathe than it was before because… Sakura’s hugging him?

He blinks, and his vision rights itself a little. Yeah, she’s hugging him. And he thinks he feels her release a sort of dry sob and he doesn’t get why but he lifts an arm to hug her. He can’t quite manage it because his limbs all feel like lead, so he ends up draping his arm heavily and awkwardly across her back instead.

Close enough.

“What… happened?” he tries to say, except his throat is dryer than Suna so he barely eeks a few syllables out. Nevertheless, it’s enough for Gaara (speaking of Suna) to understand him.

He listens to Gaara as he explains what happened — how they rushed him to his father, how Kakashi helped put the other half of Kurama’s chakra back inside him because you can’t do seals with one arm — really, he does, but his eyes are on Sakura as she sits back up. She looks like a mess. Her eyes are rimmed red and her face is caked with dirt. She scrubs the heels of her hands across it, trying to clear away the tears, which just ends up smearing everything. There’s sand in her hair too, which he guesses makes sense because Gaara said he carried her with him as she performed CPR.

He almost misses Sakura’s blush at the mention but doesn’t know what to make of it, and anyway there’s very little time to reflect on that because there is enemy ass to kick.

* * *

It’s not until a couple of days later that Naruto learns what CPR actually  _is._

He’s in a camp bed and he’s pretty unhappy about it. It’s mostly token displeasure, but not entirely. They won,  _they won_  and they saved the world and his team is whole again and there’s a whole lot to celebrate there, he knows that.

It’s just that he feels so restless and his mind lapses into reflecting on the dead when he’s got nothing else to do, and he doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like the ache of Neji’s sacrifice. He doesn’t like the hole in his heart from his father disintegrating, again. Giving up his not-quite life to save Naruto, again. It was inevitable and he knows that, he’s not stupid, but he can’t help the foolish, selfish desire for him to stick around, just a little bit longer. Long enough to really say good-bye. He’d like to say good-bye for several years and knowing that’s a fool’s dream doesn’t make it hurt any less. He doesn’t like the numbers. He doesn’t like people being reduced to  _numbers_  and  _casualty counts_. Even now there are teams out there collecting what bodies they can find, and Naruto wishes he could be there. With his shadow clones, he could sweep the field in no time and help put the dead finally to rest. It doesn’t feel quite right to celebrate until they have been properly mourned.

He doesn’t enjoy the dark turn of his thoughts when it’s quiet. This is why he’s louder than usual when he bitches about being kept like a prisoner by an IV, because he would probably rather vomit than try taking it out himself. Sakura probably knows that too. Sadist.

He’s also plain not used to being bedridden, but it turns out even Kurama can suffer chakra exhaustion if you push him hard enough. Naruto can see the big lazy thing sleeping, chin on his paws, snoring as if to say:  _You’re on your own for now, pipsqueak._

Ungrateful furball.

He learns that even being a hero doesn’t bump you to the front of the line in the medical tents when your injuries are far less severe than many others, and he gets that but that doesn’t prevent him from grumbling about it. “Can’t someone just do CPR and lemme go?” he complains to his neighbor, of sorts. Also, his relative. That’s going to take some getting used to.

Karin (currently hospitalized for chakra exhaustion as well, her healing ability is truly amazing but there’s only so many times she can be bitten before she faints) scoffs at him. “Do you even know what CPR is?”

“Hey, hey, hey! I totally know what it is, okay, I’m not stupid! It’s…”

… shit, he doesn’t actually know. Karin rolls her eyes.

Naruto huffs. “Okay, so, what is it?”

“Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation,” she explains, which sounds like an unnecessarily long jumble of syllables to him and thus explains nothing. She goes on, “It’s a way of keeping your brain and organs from dying if your heart stops. A medic forces your heart to keep pumping and breathes for you. It won’t help you any right now, unless you like broken ribs.”

A lightbulb goes off. Yes, he’s heard of this before, except the way it always went with medics in Jiraiya’s novels, it never sounded quite so clinical and detached. In fact, it almost always lead (however unrealistically) straight to making out, then clothes coming off, and then…

“Ohhh, so it’s that thing where they —”

At that exact moment, Sakura walks in. Which is really unfortunate for him, because he was just starting to superimpose her face on those fictional heroines (not on purpose! Promise! He can’t help it) and his eyes are wide as he stares at her, and she arches an eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“Ahhh, nothing, nothing!” he exclaims, while his flush betrays that it’s totally something, something. He hears Karin snort on his other side. Sakura clearly does not believe him, but doesn’t respond beyond shrugging.

“… right. Well, how are you feeling?” She’s all business as she checks his IV, then takes his wrist, two fingers pressed against his pulse and her eyes on her watch. Shit. She can probably feel his heart racing, but how can he help it when she’s standing so close to him and he now knows that she…

Maybe it’s fluster that makes him say it. Maybe it’s bravado. Maybe it’s a sort of panicked need to deflect the question or concern he knows is coming, but Naruto grins right then and says, “Maa, I’d be better if you gave me another kiss, Sakura-chan…”

There’s a really interesting pageant of emotions that play across Sakura’s face just then: confusion, followed swiftly by realization, followed by her eyebrows pinching together and then her face turns red and he’s not sure if that’s embarrassment or anger. At least not until she threads her fingers in his hair and gives it a sharp  _yank_. “ _Ow!_ ”

“ _Idiot!_  That’s not kissing! I had my hand stuck in your chest too, would you like to repeat  _that_?”

Naruto flinches because  _ow_  she’s really pulling on his hair, but then his eyes go wide. “You what?”

Sakura looks torn, which makes him flinch again because it could be her deciding whether or not she wants to whomp him over the head (or worse) and, at least in this case, it’s better to show weakness to the enemy and hope for compassion. He knows she has a soft spot for pathetic things and he absolutely doesn’t mind appearing pathetic if it means mercy.

She doesn’t end up hitting him; instead, she releases his hair, taking a step back and looking uneasy.

“… if you’re up to horsing around, I’m sure you’re fine,” she finally says. “I have rounds.”

Before he can say another word — to apologize, to call her back — she’s swept back out of the tent.

* * *

He doesn’t get to speak to her about it for another day and a half, when he’s finally considered well enough to be released. It’s not all that hard to find her. She’s in one of the medical tents, but this one is currently empty: most of the army, barring those with complications, have been treated and discharged, and it’s nearly time to pack up and go home. To return to separate villages and separate lives, but he knows he has to speak to her before they go back and they’re all swept up in a war tribunal. There are crimes that Orochimaru and Sasuke need to answer to, and Naruto really doesn’t give a shit about the former but the latter he will give all his recovered strength defending. He knows Sakura will be there with him. He knows they’ll fight the council and he knows they’ll win but who knows how long that will take?

He needs to talk to her before the moment’s lost. The moment for  _what_ , he’s not sure but he has a gut feeling that there’s  _something_  he’s missing here.

“Hey.”

Sakura looks up at him, a soft smile on her face. “Hi. What’s up?”

She’s pulled her hair up, the way she does when she’s doing intense medical procedures. He likes it this way. It shows off her face nicely, frames it just so… and he remembers the way she looked when he woke up, grubby and dirty and face streaked with tears, and you know you love a person when she’s just as beautiful to you that way as when she’s clean and composed.

Realizing he’s been staring at her and she’s started to notice, he snaps himself out of it. “I wanted t’ thank you. For saving me.”

Her turn to stare, until she shakes her head. “You don’t have to thank me for that, Naruto…”

“I know, but I wanna. I’d be dead meat if you weren’t there, I know it. And I dunno what you meant when you said you had your hand in my chest but I’m sorry I made fun before —”

She cuts him off with a laugh, and some of the tension, some of the awkwardness between them seems to let out. “I meant it literally. Your heart had stopped; I needed to keep your blood flowing. You didn’t notice you have a scar here?”

She touches his side gently, and he very nearly jumps. Nearly. Not quite. But he’s pretty sure he can hear his pulse in his ears. “Haven’t… uh, I haven’t looked in a mirror…”

It doesn’t look like she’s really heard him. She looks far-away, like her mind is in another world, someplace he can’t fathom and can’t follow. Is she stepping closer…?

“I meant it when I said that wasn’t a kiss, too,” she comments, her other hand on his face now, and he couldn’t move even if he wanted to because it’s like he’s held by a genjutsu he didn’t see her cast. The room seems far too close around them all of a sudden but he doesn’t even want to move. “ _This_  is a kiss.”

He swears his heart stops when she presses her lips to his. He can’t even return it at first, because he has to remember how that whole breathing thing works. But he gets with the program eventually, leaning down to meet her partway, hardly daring to hope that this is real but he wouldn’t need Sage Mode to know that this is really Sakura that’s kissing him. It’s too  _her_  not to be. It’s too raw, too honest, too endearingly unpracticed — although that’s probably him too. He knows it’s her because she seems to pick it up rapidly. She always was a fast learner.

Eventually she breaks off, and Naruto makes a sound of protest until he realizes that she’s breathing hard too. Her face is nearly as pink as her hair and this is real, this is real, this is Sakura wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her ear against his chest. It takes him a moment to realize he’s listening to his heartbeat. “Sakura-chan…” he says, in an awed voice.

“Mm.” She’s a little distracted, it seems.

“… that was a really corny line.”

Sakura jerks back, looking outraged and flustered and she pulls back a fist to punch him in the arm and yeah, this is Sakura, he isn’t dreaming. So he can’t be blamed for grinning at her, right? He can’t stop even as he rubs his abused bicep.

“ _Fine_  then,” she huffs. “I just won’t —”

Naruto takes her hands just then, cutting her off. He brings them up to hold them to his chest, closing the distance to brush his lips against the seal on her forehead. He’s dreamed about this for so long. Did she ever realize that was him, back when they were 12?

“S’Ok. You’ve always had my heart.”

Sakura laughs again, quietly, just for the two of them as the army breaks down camp, bit by bit. They carry the war drums home, in their chests. “Now who’s corny?”

She doesn’t give him a chance to answer.


End file.
